The 2008 Oscar Nominations

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Best Picture
'Atonement'
'Juno'
'Michael Clayton'
'No Country for Old Men'
'There Will Be Blood'

Best Director
Julian Schnabel, 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly'
Jason Reitman, 'Juno'
Tony Gilroy, 'Michael Clayton'
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 'No Country for Old Men'
Paul Thomas Anderson, 'There Will Be Blood'

Best Actor
George Clooney, 'Michael Clayton'
Daniel Day-Lewis, 'There Will Be Blood'
Johnny Depp, 'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'
Tommy Lee Jones, 'In the Valley of Elah'
Viggo Mortensen, 'Eastern Promises'

Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, 'Elizabeth: The Golden Age'
Julie Christie, 'Away From Her'
Marion Cotillard, 'La Vie en Rose'
Laura Linney, 'The Savages'
Ellen Page, 'Juno'

Best Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck, 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford'
Javier Bardem, 'No Country for Old Men'
Philip Seymour Hoffman, 'Charlie Wilson's War'
Hal Holbrook, 'Into the Wild'
Tom Wilkinson, 'Michael Clayton'

Best Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett, 'I'm Not There'
Ruby Dee, 'American Gangster'
Saoirse Ronan, 'Atonement'
Amy Ryan, 'Gone Baby Gone'
Tilda Swinton, 'Michael Clayton'

Best Foreign Film
'Beaufort' (Israel)
'Counterfeiters' (Austria)
'Katyn' (Poland)
'Mongol' (Kazakhstan)
'12' (Russia)

Best Original Screenplay
Diablo Cody, 'Juno'
Nancy Oliver, 'Lars and the Real Girl'
Tony Gilroy, 'Michael Clayton'
Brad Bird, 'Ratatouille'
Tamara Jenkins, 'The Savages'

Best Adapted Screenplay
Christopher Hampton, 'Atonement'
Sarah Polley, 'Away From Her'
Ronald Harwood, 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly'
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 'No Country for Old Men'
Paul Thomas Anderson, 'There Will Be Blood'

Best Animated Feature Film
'Persepolis'
'Ratatouille'
'Surf's Up'

Best Art Direction
'American Gangster'
'Atonement'
'The Golden Compass'
'Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'
'There Will Be Blood'

Best Cinematography
'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford'
'Atonement'
'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly'
'No Country for Old Men'
'There Will Be Blood'

Best Documentary Feature
'No End in Sight'
'Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience'
'Sicko'
'Taxi to the Dark Side'
'War/Dance'

Best Documentary Short Subject
'Freeheld'
'La Corona' ('The Crown')
'Ochberg's Orphans'
'Salim Baba'
Sari's Mother'

Best Original Score
'Atonement'
'The Kite Runner'
'Michael Clayton'
'Ratatouille'
'3:10 to Yuma'

Best Original Song
'Falling Slowly' from 'Once'
'Happy Working Song' from 'Enchanted'
'Raise It Up' from 'August Rush'
'So Close' from 'Enchanted'
'That's How You Know' from 'Enchanted'

Best Makeup
'La Vie en Rose'
'Norbit'
'Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End'

Best Animated Short Film
'I Met the Walrus'
'Madame Tutli-Putli'
'My Love (Moya Lyubov)'
'Peter & the Wolf'

Best Live Action Short Film
'At Night'
'Il Supplente (The Substitute)'
'Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)'
'Tanghi Argentini'
'The Tonto Woman'

Best Film Editing
'The Bourne Ultimatum'
'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly'
'Into the Wild'
'No Country for Old Men'
'There Will Be Blood'

Best Sound Editing
'The Bourne Ultimatum'
'No Country for Old Men'
'Ratatouille'
'There Will Be Blood'
'Transformers'

Best Sound Mixing
'The Bourne Ultimatum'
'No Country for Old Men'
'Ratatouille'
'3:10 to Yuma'
'Transformers'

Best Visual Effects
'The Golden Compass'
'Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End'
'Transformers'

Best Costume Design
'Across the Universe'
'Atonement'
'Elizabeth: The Golden Age'
'La Vie en Rose'
'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'

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I will make one prediction right off the bat: Juno's Diablo Cody will win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. As I have mentioned elsewhere, since the Academy members refuse to vote for a comedy as the Best Picture, the Best Original Screenplay category has become the de facto Academy Award for best comedy. And as lots of critics panned Lars and the Real Girl (and few people bothered to see it in the theaters), Juno is the best comedy nominated in that category.

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joefromchicago wrote:

I will make one prediction right off the bat: Juno's Diablo Cody will win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. As I have mentioned elsewhere, since the Academy members refuse to vote for a comedy as the Best Picture, the Best Original Screenplay category has become the de facto Academy Award for best comedy. And as lots of critics panned Lars and the Real Girl (and few people bothered to see it in the theaters), Juno is the best comedy nominated in that category.

"Ratatouille" is also a comedy. This means 3 out of 5 original screenplay nominees are comedies. (A drama may win this category because the comedy votes will be split.)

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wandeljw wrote:

"Ratatouille" is also a comedy. This means 3 out of 5 original screenplay nominees are comedies. (A drama may win this category because the comedy votes will be split.)

Ratatouille is an animated film. They have their own category (which Ratatouille will probably win). So the only category for live-action comedies is still Best Original Screenplay.

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I enjoyed Juno immensely.

Ellen Page was great. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it highly. (Especially as a date movie.)

I doubt that the Academy will recognize it though, as it is entirely to 'young' a movie.

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Thanks for posting this, Joe.

I'm voting for "No Country for Old Men" for Best Picture with "Atonement" hot on its heels.

"Ratatouille" is a given -- it's a better film than "Finding Nemo," "Toys" and has to be in the top ten of all animated films ever made.

I haven't thought about the Best Actor, et al, as yet. It looks like the WGA strike is all but over, according to the scuttlebutt I am hearing that is coming out of the informal talks that settled the download media hurdle that was solved for the director and actor guilds, so the Oscars will likely come off as planned. It's going to be a great race this year.

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Yes, thanks Joe.

There are a few surprises.

I liked Michael Clayton, but didn't expect it to get any awards.

Viggo Mortensen was interesting in Eastern Promises, but doesn't deserve an Oscar, imo. Do you suppose the nomination is a reward for doing the frontal nudity?

I saw Diablo Cody being interviewed. She is quite a character herself. I hope she wins.

I haven't seen There Will Be Blood yet, so I'll hold off on predictions.

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It's so close to the SAG Awards (this Sunday night on TBS) that the winners of the Oscar might this year be parallel to those chosen for that award. I think it's Daniel Day Lewis hands down. Sometimes winners get the Oscar for their filmography when they were nominated but didn't win and not just the performance for that year. I don't believe that happens so early in a career, so we will have to see more from Mortensen before he gets the statuette.

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I haven't seen "There Will Be Blood" yet, so I should probably withhold judgment on the best picture, director, and actor categories until I do. I've seen all the other best picture nominees, and the one I liked best of them was "Atonement". However, it probably doesn't have a prayer of winning since it's the only movie that was nominated for best picture whose director wasn't nominated for best director. (There was no movie that stood out for me this year the way "The Queen" did last year, but my personal best movie of the year -- again, without having seen "There Will Be Blood" -- is "Ratatouille".) I don't understand the best picture nomination for "Juno", which I thought was cute but wildly over-hyped. The screenplay, and Ellen Page's performance, were worthy of nominations (in my opinion), but a best picture it ain't.

The only thing I'll say about the best actor category is that I'm sorry Frank Langella wasn't nominated for "Starting Out in the Evening". Of the performances I've seen so far, I thought his was the best (or, at any rate, the best that had a realistic shot at being nominated -- Joseph Gordon-Levitt was superb in "The Lookout", but his Oscar nomination will have to come later in his career).

I've seen all the nominees for best actress except Cate Blanchett, and Julie Christie gets my vote hands down. I also think/hope she'll win. By the way, it's worth mentioning that Gordon Pinsent, who played her husband in "Away from Her", was also very good. He didn't have a chance of getting nominated (for one thing, he's nowhere near as pretty as Julie Christie), but she didn't carry that movie alone, and his performance shouldn't be overlooked amidst all the accolades she's deservedly getting.

I walked out of "Michael Clayton" saying, "Tom Wilkinson should win the Oscar for best supporting actor", and I still think so (albeit without having seen either Affleck or Holbrook). There were so many good supporting performances by actors this year, I could, with no disrespect to the actual nominees, fill out another whole category with deserving performances: Max von Sydow in "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", Irfan Khan in "The Namesake", Christopher Walken in "Hairspray", Andy Griffith in "Waitress", and Alan Tudyk in "Death at a Funeral" (playing stoned and making it funny is harder than it looks). By the way, if Javier Bardem had a supporting role in "No Country for Old Men", who had the lead role? (That's a rhetorical question; I know how the nominating process works.)

I'd be happy to see either Saoirse Ronan or Amy Ryan win best supporting actress. I've liked Tilda Swinton in other movies, but something about her performance in "Michael Clayton" felt wrong to me. Haven't seen Blanchett or Dee. My personal choice would have been Margo Martindale for "Paris, Je T'Aime". Yes, I know, she was onscreen for only about ten minutes, but that's more screentime than Judi Dench had in "Shakespeare in Love", for which she won an Oscar.

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Hi bree, good to see you and to hear your thoughts on the nominations. You saw lots of movies I missed last year!

LW, thanks for the reminder about the SAG awards tomorrow nite.

Maybe I'll go see There Will Be Blood tomorrow.

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How do you find time to see so many interesting films, bree? I wish I had seen all those films.

Do you prefer to watch them in theaters rather than on a rented DVD?

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wandeljw wrote:

How do you find time to see so many interesting films, bree?

It's a matter of priorities, wandeljw. For example, there are many weekends when I think, "I could either clean my apartment or go to a movie". Guess which I choose?

wandeljw wrote:

Do you prefer to watch them in theaters rather than on a rented DVD?

In theaters, by all means. I don't even own a DVD player.

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The news seems to be that the writer's strike is almost over. It couldn't be that the Oscar show is looming and the producers, wanting to hang on to their industry's award (as opposed to the Golden Globes) and not as any kind of showdown. The show must go on or it will hurt the box office of these films, the DVD sales and rentals, plus how much money they get from Pay-per-view and cable to present the nominated, but especially the winning, films. Not just vaguely hypocritical, is it?

I mis-stated that a new actor doesn't get the Oscar as that happens many times. It's if they are now in mid-career and up against a career like Daniel Day-Lewis, it kind of stacks the cards. Well, and the fact that his performance in "There Will Be Blood" could be the best of his filmography.

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It's coming up this Sunday! Funny how the production companies signed with the writers just in time. Here's the IMDb poll of who the winners might be:

LINK: http://www.imdb.com/features/rto/2008/poll/oscarpoll-results

And don't forget the Independent Films Spirit Awards on Saturday (it starts at 1:00 PM here on the IFC channel). Here are the nominees:

http://www.imdb.com/features/rto/2008/isa

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I like the Spirit Awards even better than the Oscars. Maybe because they're more relaxed.

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I'm not sure how many times it's happened before, but Cate Blanchett could win the Spirit Award for best supporting female actor and the Oscar as well.

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I'm no critic, but I've seen three of the movies up for best picture, and as far as I'm concerned, only No Country for Old Men is even remotely close to what I would consider a worthy "best picture."

The ones I haven't seen are Atonement and Michael Clayton. Atonement is a romance set in some other place and time, which automatically makes it a snoozefest and a piece of crap. Therefore, that one's out. Michael Clayton looks like it might be good, but I couldn't tell you firsthand.

As far as the other three, "No Country For Old Men" was good, but the rest of them are just terrible choices. Juno is a cute little movie, but it seems silly to put this up there. Its the equivalent to me of "16 Candles," and while 16 Candles was a good movie, it would be stupid to see it nominated for best picture, wouldn't it?

That being said, it is far superior to the biggest piece of **** on the list, "There Will Be Blood." Oh my god, people are RAVING over this piece of **** over on IMDB. Why? It's slow-moving, somewhat confusing in parts, and Daniel Day Lewis was far better as "The Butcher" in Gangs of New York. He was good in this movie, but that isn't nearly enough to bring this piece of **** movie anywhere NEAR best picture status. BORING.

Maybe I missed the meeting where the academy decided that they would be rewarding movies for their lack of entertainment value this year.

I hope No Country wins, even though I didn't think that was as great as all the hype surrounding it either.

If I were running the show, I'd take out There Will be Blood and put
"Into the Wild" up in it's place. I wasn't blown away by that movie either, but it was way better than TWBB.

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joefromchicago wrote:

I will make one prediction right off the bat: Juno's Diablo Cody will win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. As I have mentioned elsewhere, since the Academy members refuse to vote for a comedy as the Best Picture, the Best Original Screenplay category has become the de facto Academy Award for best comedy. And as lots of critics panned Lars and the Real Girl (and few people bothered to see it in the theaters), Juno is the best comedy nominated in that category.

Bullseye!

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Loved her earrings!

And Daniel Day-Lewis', too!

And yes I'm a totally shallow fashion freak! <flips hair>

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I missed it.

Can someone please confirm my suspiscion that, concluding the obligatory "Dead in 2007" montage was a slow motion Heath Ledger shot, a quick cut to Daniel Day Lewis on Camera 2, back to slow-motion-Ledger, ending with a fade to black? Followed by a standing ovation?

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The 2008 Oscar Nominations

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